4 ideas
Vauvenargues holds that 'les grandes pensées viennent du cœur': feeling and instinct supply the direction and force of thought, and reason only organizes what the heart has already grasped. He adds that 'la raison nous trompe plus souvent que la nature', because calculation gets lost in rationalizations while a well-formed instinct responds directly to what is worth pursuing.
The fact that a generous person enjoys doing good does not reduce generosity to self-love. What matters is the object of the act: if the pleasure comes from another person's good, the motive is real benevolence. Treating every felt satisfaction as disguised egoism erases a genuine difference between people who care about others and people who do not.
Ambition is judged by its motive and its understanding of difficulty, not by whether it seeks greatness. 'Great men undertake great things because they are great; fools because they think them easy.' The legitimate ambitious person sees the full cost and commits anyway, 'living as if one would never die.' Seeking glory through real achievement is a spur to excellence, not a vice to be hidden.
'The usual pretext of those who make others unhappy is that they want their good.' Claiming to act in someone's interest disarms their objections and quiets the actor's own conscience, so the most persistent harms often come from people who believe they are benefactors. A related maxim adds that we have no right to make miserable those we cannot make good.